JIM SQUIRE, FISHERMAN
A BOOK LAUNCH ON THE SLIPWAY
Queue for your copy from 3pm on Saturday, 19th September
When stories are told of fishing in Lympstone, Jim Squire looms large.
Tony Day listened to these bygone tales of village life, and wondered, “Why doesn’t anyone write them down?” Now Tony himself has done just that, and the result is a new book, called:
A LYMPSTONE LAD
The life and times of Jim Squire, fisherman
Jim started to write his own account of growing up and fishing in Lympstone, but fell ill before he got very far. And so Tony has finished the story for him, and the History Society have published it as a 92 page book with 43 photographs. It tells the tale of our estuary village in the second half of the 20th century, and one of its great characters.
Here is the village school with its old-fashioned discipline, home life in the Buildings, erected for ‘toilers of the deep’, and here are the village lads at play – the darts and the dances, the Skiffle Group and the Tug of War, the boats and the cockling, the night life and the sing-songs.
And here, of course, are the fish: the herrings and the salmon, the cockles and the winkles, the mackerel and the flounder… They come and they go, and the fishermen follow them, coping with the seasons, the tides, the water bailiff, increasing regulations and decreasing numbers of fish.
Told with humour and affection, this is a tale of a way of life that has now almost vanished
The book will be launched on the slipway, on the afternoon of Saturday, 19th September. It will be on sale from 3pm, at a village discount price of only £5. You are invited to queue, at Covid-safe distance, and make sure of your copy. Tony will be there to sign it.
IMAGE: The cover of the book is a portrait of Jim painted in 1996 by the artist Wilf Plowman, who lived in the village. He became internationally famous for his paintings of polo, hunting, carriage driving and other equestrian themes, many of which featured members of the Royal Family, who were keen collectors of his work. Prints of a painting belonging to Princess Anne raised £80,000 for charity.
